About the First Sino-Japanese War

Although often overlooked, the First Sino-Japanese War is an important study in politico-military history for four reasons. It was the first war waged by a revived Japan under the Meiji Emperor. By defeating China, traditionally the leading country of East Asia, Japan became the leading regional power. The war led to the conquest of Korea, setting the stage for Japan's next conflict, the Russo-Japanese War. Finally, the defeat was the beginning of the end for the Qing Dynasty in China.

Time Frame

The official dates for the First Sino-Japanese War were August 1st, 1894 to April 17th, 1895. However, shots were exchanged between Japanese and Chinese forces prior to the formal declaration of war, and Japanese forces invaded the Chinese tributary of Korea on June 8th, 1894.

The Facts

By the 1890s, Japan was receiving the first fruits of its chosen path of Westernization under the Emperor Meiji. However, its path to industrialization made the Japanese government painfully aware of the bugbear that has troubled Japan ever since: the lack of natural resources in the Japanese islands. That made foreign expansion very attractive. Furthermore, the penninsula of Korea has always been a security concern for the Japanese, and is often referred to as a "dagger pointing at the heart of Japan." It was considered important to deny Korea to others, lest it become a base for attacking the Japanese home islands. The Japanese government became determined to seize Korea from China.

China was ruled by the Qing Dynasty, which was on its last legs at the time. There was no effective national military, and central authority was very weak. It would be better to imagine China as a confederacy of regional governments and warlords, loosely overseen by the Qing Emperor and his court, than to think of China as a state under a functional central government. In the event of war, none of these regional governments could count on the others for support, which would prove to be a fatal weakness against the Japanese. The region of Beiyang, which wielded the most modernized Army and Navy in all of China, had to face the Japanese onslaught alone and without support from the rest of the giant country. China had also already suffered under the inroads of Western-imposed trade treaties and mercantile activities. The Chinese state was weak, rotten, and ready to collapse.

Korea was not a part of China proper, but a longtime tributary state.

History of

The Japanese laid the groundwork for their war of expansion in two ways. First, the set up a rebel movement in Korea called the Tonghak Rebel Army. Second, they were aware that the Chinese garrison in Korea could only be supplied by sea, across the Bay of Asan. The Japanese Navy staked an early claim to the Bay by sending several warships, destroying the Chinese gunboat Kwang-Yi, and driving the Chinese out of those waters. This small naval engagement represented the first real shots fired between Chinese and Japanese forces.

On June 8th, 1864, the Japanese Army landed a force of about 4,500 infantry and marines to support the Tonghak Rebellion. The Chinese put the rebellion down anyway, but the Japanese invasion force remained in Korea. The rapidly marched from Seoul to the Asan Bay, met the 3,500 strong Chinese force there, and routed them in the Battle of Seonghwan. The Chinese retreated to Pyongyang. Mediation efforts between the Qing government and Japan failed, and war was declared on August 1st.

The Chinese reinforced the remnants of the force that fought at Seonghwan to a strength of over 13,000. Meanwhile, the Japanese army in Korea had been raised to 10,000. The Japanese surrounded the Chinese at Pyongyang, assaulted and defeated them on September 15th.

Two days later, the Japanese Navy attacked the Beiyang naval forces at the mouth of the Yalu River and destroyed them. In this one stroke the Japanese Navy seized sea control, and established the tradition of victory through aggressive warfare that would make them so formidable in the Russo-Japanese and Second World Wars.

The Chinese drew their next defensive line along the north banks of the Yalu River. A Japanese army of 10,000 skillfully crossed the Yalu on October 14th by pontoon bridge and under the noses of the Chinese defenders. They mounted a night attack and defeated the Chinese army of 15,000. The Japanese column split up, and in conjunction with an amphibious landing of more Japanese troops, exploited their victory with a rapid occupation of much of Northern Manchuria. By November 21st, the Japanese had seized Port Arthur.

War operations culminated with the blows of the Seige of Weihaiwei, the Battle of Yingkou, and the Invasions of Formosa (modern Taiwan) and the Pescadores by Japanese forces. Weihaiwei fell on February 12th, opening Southern Manchuria and even the northernmost reaches of the Chinese heartland to invasion. The Japanese inflicted their last defeat of the Chinese in a major land battle on March 5th at the Battle of Yingkou. On March 26th and 29th, they seized the islands of Formosa and the Pescadores.

The war was formally concluded with the Treaty of Shimonoseki on April 17th, 1895. The Qing Dynasty agreed to give the Japanese the Liaodong Peninsula, Formosa and the Pescadores Islands, and to pay large reparations. Diplomatic intervention by Russia, Germany, and France forced the Japanese to give the Liaodong Penninsula back to China in exchange for further reparation payments.

Significance

The First Sino-Japanese War was the first war waged by post-Meiji Reformation Japan, and indeed, the first international war waged by the formerly isolationist Japan in centuries. They defeated China, long regarded as the indigenous regional power in East Asia, and thus supplanted them. The Japanese also put the West on notice that they were strong enough to defend themselves from bullying and incursions.

Effects

In 1898, Russia signed a lease with China for use of the Liaodong Penninsula (including Port Arthur) for 25 years, and established a naval base there. Given that the Russians were one of the European powers that forced Japan to disgorge the Liaodong in the first place, the Japanese were furious. This was the beginning of rising tensions over influence in Manchuria that would eventually cause the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.

Japanese performance in the First Sino-Japanese War so impressed Great Britain that the two countries agreed to an alliance in 1902. The Japanese Navy was already a British-trained and partially British-armed force, and they continued to improve under this closer relationship with the world's premier naval power.

The seizure of Port Arthur from the Chinese in 1895 resulted in massacres of Chinese civilians, foreshadowing the future massacres in the Second Sino-Japanese War.